A free keyword-method app for Spanish
The keyword method is the trick of hooking a Spanish word to an English sound-alike and one ridiculous image. You can do it on your own, in a flashcard app, or in an app built around it. Here is what Lingtastic gives you for free, who picks its images, and where it is still small.
What is free
Everything you learn from. The app, every word in it, every image, every example sentence and the audio cost nothing, and there's no trial that runs out. Plans exist only to pay for drawing extra images with our generator, because each one costs real money. What's free, and what the plans are for.
Who picks the images
In an app built around one fixed set of images, the image you get is the one the app chose. Here, every word can have several candidate images on the community site. Anyone can suggest a sound-alike, upload an image they made, or draw one with the generator, and members vote. When one image has enough votes and a clear lead, and has passed the safety check, it goes into the app for everyone. How voting works.
The site is new and still small. If an image for a word doesn't work for you, that's exactly the time to vote, or to make a better one.
Verbs work too
Nouns are easy to picture. Verbs are where people get stuck, because nobody can draw "to eat". The fix is to make the image do the verb: the sound-alike is the object, and the action is the meaning.
comerto eat · "comb air": spaghetti, eaten with a comb
beberto drink · "baby bear": a bear gulping a glass bigger than itself
correrto run · "courier": he left the bike and runs the parcel there
dormirto sleep · "door mirror": asleep on her feet against the mirror doorThe sound-alike brings back the meaning. For how the word really sounds, every word in the app is also spoken aloud.
Three ways to use the method
| Cost | Where the images come from | |
|---|---|---|
| On your own | Free | You invent every sound-alike and picture it in your head. The strongest images are often your own, but it's slow, and the hard words are the ones you can't think of anything for. How to make your own. |
| A flashcard app | Varies | You make each card, find or draw the image, and type in the sound-alike yourself. |
| Lingtastic | Free | Every word comes with a sound-alike, one image and the audio, and you can vote for a better image or make your own. |
Where it is still small
The app has 200 words today, chosen as the ones a beginner meets first. Some keyword-method apps have thousands, in several languages. Lingtastic is Spanish only, and the list grows as members suggest words and the community settles their images. If you need a word that isn't there, suggest it.